The Best External Drives of 2017

So you are running out of space on your laptop or PC and you are looking up for a storage device to backup or store your photos, music albums and files, then an external hard drive is a right way to go.

External drives are a very important piece of hardware if you want to get some extra space or if you want to copy your project from your PC to take it with you.

Buying an external drive can be very tricky as there are many key factors that you should keep in mind like the type of hard drive, storage amount, connection, speed, portability and power.

To help you find a decent external drive according to your need, we have looked through the stack of external drives and have listed down and reviewed some of the best external drives that will collectively fit the needs of everyone.

• Samsung T5:

Samsung T5 is a compact, portable, affordable and high speed external drive that is a successor to Samsung T3 and has drawn inspiration from its predecessor. It has a very clean look and feel.

This storage device can pack up to 2 Terabytes of storage space and uses Samsung’s latest generation of 3D V Nand Technology. This drive comes with pre-installed encryption software and has a very good read and write speed.

The body of the drive is made up solid aluminum shell and the company claims that it can withstand a drop from six feet, although we would not recommend trying that. The price point differs according to the size of the storage. You can get the 2 Terabytes model for $750 and this is the most expensive external drive on our list.

Image by CNET

• Seagate Backup Plus Desktop Drive:

If you are looking for a decent budget friendly option then this drive might be the right way to go. This drive offers a lot of capacity and you can choose from 2TB to 8TB versions available.

This drive is compatible with both Windows and iOS and comes with pre-installed​ Seagate Dashboard Backup Utility, this software is very useful for users who want to use the drive for backing up their media libraries, photos and videos, you can also download and store files from social media sites using this software.

This external drive is relatively larger than an internal 3.5 inch standard hard drive. The device looks decent and is made up of plastic which does not feel cheap at all. It has ventilation holes on both sides for good airflow.

The drive has 7,200 RPM motor with reading speed of 127 Mbps and write speed of 95.5 Mbps. It is overall a very simple and functional drive with a price of $100 for 2 Terabytes which makes it affordable for everyone.

Image by Seagate

• Western Digital My Passport:

My Passport external drive as its name suggests is roughly the same size as an actual passport, which makes it one of the smallest drives in our list. It is also a budget friendly option​ which outperforms most of his rivals at much less price.

It has a 3.0 USB connection which provides excellent disk control and speed. This device can read with a speed of 174 Mbps and write with a speed of 168 Mbps. You can choose from 1 TB to 4 TB range.

This device does not need any external power supply it is powered by a single cable. It has a blue LED light which indicates​ when device is powered on.

Western Digital is well known for their reliable hard drives and My Passport comes with a 3 year warranty. You can buy the 1 TB option for $57 from Amazon.

Image by Western Digital

• Seagate Expansion 5 TB:

If you want a whole lot of storage space and you don’t care about portability then this external drive is the one for you. This inexpensive external drive does require an external power and is not very speedy. But it provides 5 TB storage and a three year warranty for only $120.

This external drive has a pretty straight forward look and comes in a textured black case.

Image by Amazon

• Toshiba Canvio Connect 2:

Toshiba Canvio Connect 2 is a portable drive which is not too far behind with a speed of 5,400 RPM. This is not the most speedy option but you get a bonus of 10 gigabytes of Toshiba cloud storage with this device.

It is very small in size and measure at 4.3 x 3.1 x .08 inches and weighs about a half pound. You can choose from a range of 500 GB to 3 TB.

This drive is compatible with both iOS and Windows and is fairly easy to set up. There is a single USB port for connection and power. It can read with a speed of up to 112 Mbps depending upon the file size and write with a speed of 112.4 Mbps.

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